American family entombed in strip mall

The Republicans in Congress ought to hold a vigil at the Penn Branch Shopping Center, a strip mall a short drive down Pennsylvania Avenue from the U.S. Capitol. Within this mall, entombed in an otherwise empty storefront, lie the dead dreams of an entire small town of American families.

Who killed them? The prime suspects are the municipal government of Washington, D.C., the Clinton Administration and Congress. Most likely it was a conspiracy of all three.

What do I mean? Let's start by identify the victims, then trace the evidence back from the scene of the crime to finger the guilty parties. %

In every neighborhood in America this morning there was a mother who left her home, dropped her young children off at a day-care center or a babysitter, and then went on to ajob she does not want, but cannot quit, because her family depends on it.

This mom is not really a free. She does not surrender her children to a relative stranger and go to work at a tedious job because she believes toiling away in middle management is morally superior to raising children. She does it because the government forces her to do it.

American Serfs

The Census Bureau reports that twoearner families in the United States in 1998 earned a median income of $57,388. Of that income, 39%, or about $22,381, was paid in all forms of taxes to local, state and federal governments-the largest chunk going to Uncle Sam in the form of income and Social Security taxes. If Mom and Dad make exactly the same pay-$28,694 each-that means that the job of the second working parent netted the family a piddling $6,313 after taxes (much of which was immediately absorbed by child-care costs). If one parent earned 61 % of the family income, and the other parent earned 39% of the family income, the second parent's job netted the family exactly nothing after taxes (and less than nothing after child-care costs). All that the second working parent could do was compensate the family for money paid in taxes by the first working parent.

In a median two-earner family where the parents make equal pay, but then decide to forgo the second income so Mom can stay home with the children, the family would need to learn to get by on $28,694 per year, minus taxes.

Try living anywhere near a major urban job center on that. Try doing it while settling your family in a safe neighborhood and sending your children to decent schools.

If you don't think middle-class families live this dilemma daily in our country you must be a top advisor to President Clinton or a member of the Democratic caucus. The rest of us know this from our own families, our friends, our neighbors.

If you assume that the second working parent is the mom-which, of course, is not always the case-that means that taxation forces mom to work simply to make sure the family does not slip out of the middle class into a new American serfdom. She has to choose between housing her children in a safe neighborhood and sending them to good school, or staying home with them in a bad neighborhood and struggling to find good schooling.

The Prepetrators

Now that we have been to the scene of the crime, let's look for the perpetrators.

Last Monday, the Washington Post ran a story on the front page of its Metro section headlined, "D.C. FW& $500,000 Rent for Vacant Space in SE." The story reported that former D.C. Chief Management Officer Camille C. Barnett had negotiated a contract on behalf of the city government to pay $7 million over 10 years to Yong Yuri for the lease of a storefront on Pennsylvania Avenue a few miles from the Capitol.

Barnett served in the administration of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry. Yong Yuri, according to the Post, is "a D.C. businessman whose ties to former Mayor Marion Barry once were the subject of a federal investigation."

This was not the first time Yuri had profited from his association with the governments of our Nation's Capital. According to the Post, "As part of the investigation, prosecutors also reviewed Yuri's financial dealings, including his work as a contractor on Barry's home and a lease he had with the city for an office building Yuri owned. That lease began as a 10-year, $6.5-million deal, but under Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly was amended five times to a $17.6-million, 20-year deal. As a result of the probe of Yuri's finances, he wound up pleading guilty to using a $172,000 construction loan for personal use."

The new $7-million real estate deal with Yun was approved by the D.C. control board appointed by President Clinton.

The space now stands empty-and has remained empty all year at a rent of $50,000 per month-because the people in the neighborhood objected to the D.C. government's plan to use it as a welfare office. Current Mayor Anthony Williams, who to his credit had no part in the deal, now says he intends to use the space for a small police station and a Department of Motor Vehicles office-things that the city did not know it really needed there until it was @&aught with this embarrassingly vacant and incredibly expensive space.